Salmon Mango Salad

You see, this is precisely why you get married. Never as a single guy would I ever have made something like Salmon Mango Salad. But I was missing out! Hopefully you’ll try this and it will become one of your favorites too. Enough talk, on to the specifics:

Salmon Mango Salad Recipe

Adapted from a Cooking Light recipe

4 6 oz salmon portions
2/3 cup fresh squeezed lime juice (5-6 limes)
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
salt
mixed salad greens
1-2 ripe mangoes, sliced and peeled

Preheat oven to 375.

Whisk together lime juice, honey and ginger. Place salmon in a foil lined pan. Drizzle about 1/4 to 1/3 of lime honey ginger mixture over top. Season slightly with salt. Cook for approximately 10-12 minutes, then broil until brown on top.

Divide greens onto four plates. Top with mango and salmon, then drizzle with remaining honey lime ginger mixture.

Salmon Mango Salad

Because one’s daughter is going to love it!

February turned into the month of cakes at our house. The kids birthdays are both in early February, I was up in the cake baking rotation at work, and my family came to visit for a big birthday weekend bash which was supposed to feature THREE cakes:

But how does one find time to make an owl cake, an oatmeal cake, and a vegan cake? As it turns out this did prove a little daunting and the actually party was downgraded to just the owl cake and the farm/tractor cake. But throw in a couple of test runs and February still became the month of cakes and sugar highs…soon followed by March, the month of cake withdrawal.

Researching How to Make an Owl Cake

Since my daughter is currently in love with owls I spent some time searching the internet trying to come up with some tips on how to make an owl cake or at least a cake decorated with an owl theme. I remembered the classic coconut bunny cake that my stepmom made for us one year at Easter–the one where you bake two round cakes and cut the second one into the shape of two ears and a bow tie. So I cut out two small circles and played around with cutting them to come up with an owl shape. I ended up baking a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting using this recipe from Martha Stewart (it calls for three layers, I just baked it in two 8″ round cake tins). For the eyes, I went with a couple of oreo cookies with chocolate chip pupils. Throw on some chopped walnut feathers, a carrot beak, and voila! Owl cake!

Learning how to make an owl cake was a real hoot

The Oatmeal Cake was easier to make as I have made it many times before. I refrained from actually trying to turn the cake into a tractor and instead just decorated the top of the cake with a tractor.

Minimal Effort. Maximum Birthday Fun! Can I get a hoot hoot! Sorry…owl cake humor.

Wow, we have seriously fallen off the blog wagon.  Between it being way too hot to cook and this time of year being crazy at work, I have had little energy or motivation for cooking.  If we took pictures of our typical meals they would be BLTs, Trader Joe’s chicken pot stickers, or skip and tear soup.  And to be honest, there were a couple of times where once or twice a week you would find us standing at the sink, ripping into a pre-cooked chicken roaster like a monkey on a cupcake (thank you Ray Barone for that quote).  Not pretty.  However, now that the weather is cooling down and the end of weekend work is in sight, I think it will be easier to post.  Plus, the kids are getting better at playing together without constant intervention (knock on wood).

Prune plums showed up at our local farmer’s market a week or two ago.  They have a very short season.  I think in the past I have found them at the grocery store around Labor Day and then for maybe another week or two.  I first had this torte at my Great Aunt Ann’s house.  She would freeze them and pull them out at other times of the year.  The recipe was originally in the New York Times.  I think the story goes that they had to reprint it yearly for 15 years because so many people would request the recipe.  It’s actually very quick and easy to make, I may have to try it out with some other type of fruit since I didn’t freeze any this year.

Plum Torte

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter

1 cup unbleached flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

pinch salt

2 eggs

12 prune or Italian plums, cut in half and pitted

sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar.  Mix in eggs.  Stir in flour, baking powder, salt.  Spoon batter into 9″ springform pan.  Place plums on top skin side up.  Sprinkle lightly with sugar, lemon juice, and about 1 tsp cinnamon.  Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

These can be frozen.  To freeze after cooled wrap in a double layer of foil, place in ziploc bag.  To reheat, defrost for an hour and bake at 300 degrees briefly.

plum torte anyone?

Last week, the kids and I headed to the local farmer’s market to pick up our first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) share of the season. CSA’s are a great way to support local farmers and to get fresh local produce. It comes with a bit of a risk because you don’t always know what or how much you are getting. But you also benefit when the crop is good and I think the mystery element is fun because it gives you sort of a weekly Top Chef/Next Food Network Star challenge every week. And if you know your local conditions and growing seasons then you have a reasonable shot at predicting the sorts of items you can expect every week. So you get a little mystery and intrigue which is fun, but you won’t have too many items coming completely out of left field ala Iron Chef. Worse yet, Fear Factor! I mean we like to experiment and all, but stinky tofu and grasshoppers might be taking it a bit far.

If you’d like to find Community Supported Agriculture in your local area localharvest.org is a great tool for doing just that!  And checkout Foodie Tots for more ideas for local recipes.

So this week we received several types of squash in our CSA share which led me to a Vegetarian Times recipe I found several years ago. That recipe calls for mint which we didn’t have so I substituted a teaspoon of dried italian seasoning. It came out great, very delicious! A word of warning though, this is not a one pot meal. But to make things easier I sauteed the leeks and squash a day or two ahead of time.  You can also use no boil noodles to make things easier, which I’ve done in the past, but this time I boiled regular whole wheat lasagna noodles.  If you do use the no boil lasagna I recommend pouring a little milk over the top of them to soften them a little.

On to the recipe!

Three Cheese Summer Squash Lasagna

9 whole wheat lasagna noodles
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 medium leeks, chopped
6 cups summer squash (zucchini, yellow squash, and patty pan)
Fresh herbs (parsley, rosemary, thyme)
1 16 ounce container of low-fat cottage cheese
6 cloves or garlic
1 10 ounce package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1 large egg
3/4 cup crumbled feta
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Cook noodles according to package directions. Heat oil in skillet over medium high heat. Add leeks and saute 6 minutes. Add squash and saute 8-10 more minutes. Stir in herbs and season with salt and pepper.

Blend cottage cheese and garlic in food processor until smooth. Stir in spinach and egg.

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray pan (13 x 9) with cooking spray. Place 3 noodles in bottom of pan. Top with 1/3 squash mixture, then 1/3 spinach mixture, and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of feta. Repeat layers twice ending with spinach mixture. Top with remaining feta and mozzarella.

Coat foil with cooking spray. Cover lasagna and bake for 35 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. Or cool completely and freeze (to reheat let lasagna sit at room temperature for 1 hour, bake at 350 for 20 minutes or until hot and bubbly).

Three Cheese Summer Squash Lasagna

Walah! Hope you enjoy as much as we did. And if you have any leftover zucchini as we did you can always fix some zucchini frittata for breakfast!

In 1983, in his stand-up comedy special Delirious, Eddie Murphy talked about the polarizing effect of ice cream on our nation’s youth. Umm…well…maybe he didn’t use those words exactly.  But it was a hilarious bit about when he was growing up all the kids in his neighborhood would lose their minds when they heard the ice cream truck coming and the antics that would ensue. His material is funny because it rings true.  Kids go a little insane when faced with the prospects of ice cream. It results in some weird firing of synapses that sends the body into a mixed state of euphoria and delirium.

The ice cream effect is not reserved to just kids. Grown ups go nuts over ice cream. Case and point, my grandmother and her life long love affair with ice cream. If you ask her she claims that her love for ice cream is born out of the fact that she grew up during the depression during which time ice cream for her family was a rare treat and you only got a very small amount. Yes, but Grandma, I think you’ve made up for that by now. At family birthday parties we used to have to check the bottom of the ice cream container because she would open it early and steal a taste. “A mouse got into it” she would say. Often times we would serve her preposterously large servings of ice cream as a joke. She never would get the joke. She would always eat the entire serving of ice cream with a smile.

Yep, no doubt about it. Ice Cream is magical. Maybe it just reminds us of summer. Of growing up. Of family. Or maybe it’s just freaking good! It doesn’t hurt that it comes in about a bazillion flavors.

The numbers   certainly bear out the popularity of ice cream. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, the “total U.S. production of ice cream and related frozen desserts in 2004 amounted to about 1.6 billion gallons, translating to about 21.5 quarts per person.” I wonder how much of that was for my grandmother?

So who am I to try to resist the magical power of ice cream? I wouldn’t dare. Not to mention the strong genetic gravitation towards ice cream that I obviously inherited from my grandmother. So when Melissa suggested that we should buy a homemade ice cream maker I certainly was not about to protest. And strawberry ice cream always has been one of my favorites so that seemed like a great place to start.

Here are the specifics:

Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream

This recipe is a family recipe and is usually enjoyed on July 4th.  Cleaning the dasher is one of the best parts of making this ice cream.

1 quart whole milk

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch (slack)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 pint heavy cream

4 cups pureed strawberries (slightly sweetened–maybe 1/2 cup sugar)

Scald whole milk.  Add sugar, cornstarch, and salt.  Cook until slightly thickened (coats spoon instead of just running off).  Temper beaten eggs by adding about 1 cup of hot milk mixture and whisk into beaten eggs.  Then add this to milk mixture, while whisking constantly.  Cook 1 minute.  Add heavy cream.  Remove from heat and cool.  Add strawberries.  Makes about 4 quarts of ice cream.  Once adding the ice cream mixture to the container for the ice cream maker, we topped off with more whole milk to raise the level almost to the fill line of the ice cream maker (don’t over fill or it will expand and run out of the container towards the end).

Some tips:  We did not temper the eggs in our first batch.  This led to a few little strands of egg in the final product.  It still tasted good, but was a little less appealing.  Also, our ice cream came out a little soupy.  I think this was for two reasons: 1) the strawberries pieces were a little too big and bunched up in the dasher of the ice cream maker, making it difficult to spin and 2) we ran out of ice and got distracted making dinner while the ice cream maker was running, and when it finished the ice was only 1/2 to 2/3 up the side of the container–I think it would have frozen more if we had added more ice and rock salt.

Life is waiting....grab a spoon!

My grandmother makes and amazing strawberry rhubarb pie–I think it may be one of my favorite desserts that she makes, top 5 at least.  My pie crust doesn’t quite measure up.  Plus it takes a little bit longer to make and to cook.  So, I decided to try out the filling of the pie with a crisp topping instead of in a pie crust–strawberry rhubarb crisp.  I was a little too impatient and cut it a little too soon and it ended up somewhat runny.  I think it would be fine if cooled a little longer.  We had cool whip, but I think vanilla ice cream would be much better.  The topping is a Cooking Light version of fruit crisp.  I use it for apple, pear, and blueberry crisp sometimes as well.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

Fruit:
3 cups rhubarb, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 cups strawberries, halved
3 Tablespoons flour
1/2 cup of sugar
pinch of salt

Topping:
2/3 cup flour
2/3 cup oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
6 Tablespoons butter (chilled, cut into small pieces)

Preheat oven to 375F.  Stir together fruit ingredients.  Pour into greased 9 inch pan.  Measure topping ingredients into food processor.  Pulse until coarse meal forms (maybe couscous size?).  Pour over fruit.  Cook for about 30 minutes.  Let cool for 10 minutes before cutting.  Top with ice cream or whipped cream.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

What qualifies as a healthy toddler friendly cookie

• Your toddler actually has to like them. So basically there need to be enough flavor there so that the buzz word “cookie” wins out over the buzz word “healthy”. You might want to keep the healthy part under wraps and play up the cookie part.

• They actually have to be a somewhat healthy cookie. As a parent you need to be able to sleep at night knowing you gave your child something of nutritional substance and not just a bunch of junk.

Okay, so are you with me parents? We have to stick together otherwise these kids are going to take over!

I know, I can always use advice and tips from others going through the same process of trying to get their toddler to develop healthy eating habits. This recipe is one of the tricks up my sleeve for getting my son to eat a healthy breakfast. We’re always looking for and finding tips and tricks to get our children to eat healthy balanced meals (and so Mommy and Daddy survive meal time). So, stay tuned for more Toddler Friendly Food Tuesdays. Today I’m going to share with our our recipe for a healthy oatmeal breakfast cookie.

One of the most difficult parts of our week day is getting ready in the morning. My son has always been a picky eater and has always been at the bottom of the weight charts. We used to frequently let him eat a granola bar as breakfast (or pre-breakfast snack), but the sugar content has always bothered me from a healthy eating perspective (plus all the million other ingredients including trans fat and high fructose corn syrup). We’ve been experimenting with granola and oatmeal to find a suitable replacement. I stumbled onto this while looking up healthy oatmeal cookie recipes. Many of the recipes I found online had lots of sugar. I reduced the amount of sugar and added some chocolate chips (who can resist chocolate chips). I realize the addition of chocolate chips makes it less healthy, but the goal was to create something my son would eat. The chocolate chips make for a good compromise. It transforms it into something a toddler to eat, it is a oatmeal breakfast COOKIE! after all, but at the same time there are still lots of good wholesome ingredients in there to please Mom and Dad and satisfy the health factor. Add a fried egg and it really makes a good breakfast–plus he is more willing to eat the egg if he knows he gets another cookie. The last batch I made I forgot to add the chocolate chips, so I sprinkled some on top–we’ll probably try them with our 16 month old to see if she will eat it. She is definitely less picky then our son. I don’t know if that is just a personality difference or a second kid difference. Probably both.

This is a good Sunday mid-morning activity. Sam has gotten really good at helping in the kitchen. I usually have fun cooking with him, but occasionally have to remind myself not to worry about the mess. After I almost spilled the entire container of oats and started to get really annoyed with the whole process, my son said, “Mommy, the mistakes are what make it fun.” Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder. Messes can be fun. Oops, there goes some more flour on the floor.

I think the cookie is somewhat of a misnomer, because these end up more bread or muffin like. But if calling it a “cookie” makes my toddler eat more healthy than sign me up. I think the original recipe I found for these was on spark recipes (http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/home.asp), which is an interesting site I’ve visited occasionally. I like the recipe calculator feature where you can type in all the ingredients of one of your recipes and it will give you calories and nutritional info. I think I reduced the sugar in the recipe and also increased the flour to compensate.

Oatmeal Breakfast “Cookies”

1/2 cup canned pumpkin (I have been using baked sweet potato because I can’t find pumpkin now)

1 cup applesauce, unsweetened

1 cup banana, mashed (I used 2 bananas)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sugar

1.5 cups whole wheat flour

1.5 cup all purpose flour

1.5 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg
3 cups Oats

1/3 cup chocolate chips (I have started using mini chips)

Mix pumpkin, applesauce, banana, white sugar, and brown sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour, wheat flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice. Mix in oats and chocolate chips. Grease cookie sheets and drop heaping tablespoons of cookie dough onto sheets. Cook for 12-15 minutes at 350F. Let cool for 1 minute and transfer to wire rack or paper towels on counter top. Makes about 3 dozen.

Sam enjoying a healthy breakfast cookie

Zucchini Frittata

1 small zucchini thinly sliced
1 shallot (or leek, or onion)
1 roma tomato
1/2 Tablespoon olive oil
1/2 Tablespoon butter
6 eggs
1 Tablespoon half and half or heavy cream
salt
pepper
fresh parsley
fresh rosemary
fontina cheese, maybe 1/4 cup small cubes

Heat nonstick pan.  Add olive oil and butter.  Saute zucchini and shallot 3-4 minutes.  While cooking, whisk eggs.  Add cream, salt, pepper, parley, and rosemary and whisk.  Add tomato and saute for an additional 2 minutes.  Turn down heat, turn on broiler.  Add eggs and dot the top with cheese.  Cook until set, about 5 minutes (make sure egg isn’t boiling).  Stick under broiler for about 4 minutes (check and rotate pan if necessary depending on the strength of your broiler).  Let cool in pan for 2-3 minutes.  Run rubber spatula around the eggs and slide onto plate.  Let cool slightly so that cheese doesn’t all ooze out.

This is a favorite of my family’s, but growing up in upstate New York, it is more of a July 4th dish there.  Along with ribs or red hots and homemade strawberry ice cream (stay tuned-we just bought an ice cream maker and will be making this soon).  Yum.

Spring Peas and Potatoes

18-24 small new potatoes
1-2 cups shelled garden peas
butter
salt
pepper
milk

Place a steamer basket in a pot with water.  Steam the potatoes for 12-15 minutes depending on the size of the potato (the potatoes I found were maybe ping pong ball size).  Add the shelled, rinsed peas and steam for an additional 3-5 minutes.  Drain the peas and potatoes.  Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces.  Put the potatoes in a pot with several tablespoons of butter and add salt and pepper.  Cook for several minutes.  Add peas and cover with milk (I used about 1 cup of whole milk).  Cook on low for maybe 5-8 minutes.  Dish and serve.  I like extra fresh grated pepper on mine.

Spring Peas and Potatoes

Question: What meal is going to be low prep and relatively  easy to make?
Answer: White Bean Enchiladas

Question: What meal is going to be relatively  inexpensive to prepare?
Answer: White Bean Enchiladas

Question: What can you make that will provide you with plenty of leftovers that will be perfect for tomorrow’s lunch?
Answer: White Bean Enchiladas

What meal is everyone going to love?
Answer: White Bean Enchiladas

So what meal are you going to make?
Answer: Say it with me now, “White Bean Enchiladas!”

We’ve had many a night like this in our house when White Bean Enchiladas have bailed us out. And the good news is you probably already have most, if not all, of the ingredients in your pantry. So here’s the skinny:

White Bean Enchiladas
1/4 cup sour cream
2 16 ounce can of cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup shredded cheddar (divided)
4 Tablespoons green chiles
2 Tablespoon green onion
4 Tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (divided)
2 teaspoon cumin
1 16 ounce can enchilada sauce
8 8 inch flour tortillas

Mash beans (with a fork–or if you like them smoother in a food processor). Add sour cream, 1/4 cup of cheese, chiles, onion, cilantro, and cumin.

Combine 1/3 cup of enchilada sauce with 1/4 cup of water in a small nonstick pan. Heat over medium low heat and turn off. Dip one tortilla in enchilada sauce mixture, transfer to plate. Spread 1/3 cup of bean mixture down slightly off the center of the tortilla and roll up. Place in a greased 8 inch square pan. Repeat with remaining tortillas and bean mixture. Add remaining sauce to pan. Heat for 1 minute. Spread over top of enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes. Sprinkle top with remaining cilantro.

White Bean Enchiladas